The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1887-05-25
ANDERsoNvILLE.
Description of the Prison Site
as it Appears To-Day.

| were left standing III the entire enclosure
No place could have been more inhospit-
able and cherries. The swamp, in which
man would sink to the waist, occupied
considerable portion of the field, the
little stream was brackish and unpalata-
Bile the absence Of shade trees, which
might have been left, made the pen al
most caldron under the burning south
ern sun.
To-day the place presents some
what pleasanter aspect The side bills
are now farmed, the swamp is not, and
will not be for years, until redeemed by
a more careful system of agriculture. AT
Ter the prison was abandoned in April,
1865, the place grew up with second
growth timber, but this has been almost
cleared away, and in its place in the
proper season are found the products Of
Georgia hus5andry: The great, towering
stockade has almost entirely disappear
ed it is only here and there that a single
post or a little group of posts Is to be
seen. These have not rotted away but have
been wisely split up into rails to fence
off the farm land. Their purpose is not
now TO keep in prisoners, but to keep out
intruders
Still, though the heavy spiked timbers
have been removed, the three lines of
stockade can be distinctly traced they
are likely to be discernible for years TO
come The strong earthworks that the
Confederate soldiers threw up are still
there, hard and firm and the rife pits
used by them are still traceable, though
% years have elapsed since they were
dug.
Thesluggish little stream, the Bra nch,"
as the prisoners called it, still takes its
way across what was the old enclosure,
about third of the way from the south
ern boundary of the stockade. 1t is to-
day much as it was in the COS Its banks
are lined now, as then, with rank, oozy
ground, still miasmal and disagreeable,
but, of course, shorn of the fetid, excre-
mental stencil of war times. This was
ehc sChCidt SAiAh VI tht piioOd, dhu lAo
stencil could then be detected a mile
away.
Those familiar with the history of An
dersonville will remember the little
spring Providence Spring it was cali
ed, because it was godsend to the pris-
oners, that broke forth on the 18th or
18th of August, 1864, between the dead
line and the stockade, not far from the
north gate Previous to this time the
prisoners got water from the Branch"
or general sink. When this spring broke
out, however, Captain Wirz considerably
allowed them to sink barrel and con-
duct the water within the dead line"
and here the prisoners would stand in
line by the hundreds, awaiting their turn
TO get drink of fresh water. 1t was the
one great blessing of the pen, and it has
never ceased to flow. It's waters bubble
forth to-day as fresh and sparkling as in
those times of suffering. Theappearance
of the spring, of course, is changed
Twenty years of ceaseless flowing has
worked it back little higher up the hill,
since the old barrel that the prisoners
sunk soon disappeared after the prison
was abandoned. 1t is now some twenty
feet from the perceptible outline of the
stockade. For time it was protected by
a large pine stump, but is now surround
ed by neat wood eurbing about two and
half feet high, with asemi-circular open
ing on the lower side, through which the
water constantly flows.
Before the spring broke forth the pris-
oners endeavored to find fresh water by
sinking wells in the hillsides, but to no
avail. Many such excavations were made,
some of them forty or fifty feet deep. Sew
eral of these are still to be seen, almost as
perfect as when the prisoners dug them.
They are all dry, since whatever water
runs into them from the surface is rapid
ly absorbed by the sandy soil. They are
constant source of danger, vet the care
less husbandry of the south does not fill
them up.
Of course the dead line" low fence
eighteen feet from the stockade, made by
mailing a four-inch strip of board on low
posts about twenty feet apart, has wholly
disappeared. Not the slightest trace is
left of it, since it was very lightly con-
structed.
Though more than twenty years have
passed, the burroy or dugouts of the
prisoners are still discernible. 1t is
strange what grotesque humor viii crop
out in the midst of suffering. 1t seems
as though there is a la, by ,shieh hui
NOR asserts itself as protest against de-
spair from the very depth of a suffering
heart. These dugouts-mere kennels
were the boys brownstone front" The
hillsides, especially ON the north slope,
are deeply corrugated. Great washouts
are to be seen where the prisoners bur-
rows have caved in. 1t viii take long
time for the influences of weather and
shiftless farming to obliterate them
Here and ther, also, is TO be seen mar
ION, iOi- acpttc~ion III tlc SiOuiia lC9Au-
ing toward the stockade. These are caus-
ed by the falling in of the earth over the
prisoners tunnels, which were excavated
with view to escape, and escape some
$50 of the men did. Periodically the
Confederates would drive heavily load
ed wagon over the space between the
stockades and the dead line" with
view to breaking in the soil and discov-
ering the tunnels. Besides this, they
probed the ground with sharp spikes for
the same purpose. These little lines of
indenture there are eloquent with the
hopes and efforts that too often were un-
availing.
Relics of prison life are constantly be-
ing exhumed-bits of pots and kettles,
knives, spoons, eanteen covers, and the
like. These are mostly found on the
sandy slopes of the hills, since the soil Of
the marsh has scarcely been disturbed.
Upon the whole, the place has the air of
peaceful rural district. One would
readily see that it had been the scene Of
war operations. But there is nothing to
suggest the horrors of thirteen months of
prison experience except to one who can
rightly read and interpret the little signs
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